Performances

Tune of the Day: Cuttie Sark

Traditional Scottish reel

This Scottish reel is attributed to John Cumming by Keith Norman MacDonald in his Skye Collection (1887).
Irish collector Francis O'Neill (1922) remarks: “Though plainly of Scotch origin both in name and tone, ‛Cuttie Sark’ is not to be found in any of the old Scotch or Miscellaneous Collections which have been examined. Translated in English, ‛Cutty Sark’ means Short Shirt, or Chemise”.

The Cutty Sark is also the name of one of the most famous “tea clippers” (a type of sleek, fast 19th-century sailing ship, officially designated a “composite built extreme clipper ship”) built, and it is the only ship of its type to survive to the present day.